1. Field
This disclosure relates generally to communication systems and, more particularly, to systems, methods and devices for mitigating interference in a communication system.
2. Description of Related Art
Wireless communication systems are widely deployed to provide various types of communication (e.g., voice, data, multimedia services, etc.) to multiple users. As the demand for various types of wireless communication grows, there lies a challenge to implement efficient and robust communication systems. Wireless communication is made difficult by various factors that corrupt transmitted signals, such as for example, the presence of noise, multipath fading and interfering signals.
Certain existing communications system standards suffer from various drawbacks such as, for example, a lack of effective and constructive methods for compensating for interference or certain types of noise. In particular, the unlicensed nature of the ISM (Industrial, Scientific, and Medical) bands has allowed for rapid development of various wireless communication technologies and standards such as Bluetooth, which uses the 2450 MHz ISM band, and IEEE 802.11, which uses the 2450 and 5800 MHz ISM bands. Because communication devices using the ISM bands encounter interference from other equipment, these bands are typically given over to uses intended for unlicensed operation, since unlicensed operation typically needs to be tolerant of interference from other devices anyway. Interference becomes an issue as devices are allowed to operate in the same band without pre-determined frequency, temporal, or spatial planning.
There have been several attempts to mitigate this issue via higher layer protocols. For example, methods involving cooperative scheduling have been implemented to turn portions of the random access channel into a controlled access channel. Also, some work has been done to show that time domain signal processing can be used to mitigate the effects of narrowband interference. However, the time domain methods have primarily focused on mitigating interference on the data payload, without taking into account how interference affects other parts of the receiver.